Bill's N Scale Loco with LED Switched On

This and the next picture show a Con-Cor N gauge Great Northern S-2 that I did for a fellow Titusville Area Model RR Club member. The locomotive is AT LEAST 25 years old, made by Con-Cor and is of the old "split frame" variety of construction. It originally had an incandescent "grain-of-wheat" bulb, with a diode, that illuminated a plastic "light bar" behind the smokebox front, for a headlight.

View with LED Switched Off

Removed the light bar, GOW bulb & original diode. Replaced them with one of "pre-wired 3mm LEDs (W3)" from TrainAidsA. Aligned LED with headlight opening, using original headlight bulb mount & a small piece of double face tape. A 1N4001 diode fit readily next to the LED. All were connected to the original light contacts on the frame to supply power. As you can see, It's quite impressive. The LED comes on at full brightness just as the locomotive begins to move and stays constant through its entire speed range.
The owner is more than happy with it! Thanks!

Disassembled F-40 ready for install with necessary parts, Trainaidsa.com W3 W-White LED and Radio Shack 1N4001 Silicon Diode

Completed wiring, ready for 'folding' to fit under front ballast weight. Note how the diode lead goes to the rear, then folds over the top to keep it out from under the front weight.
There were no "surprises" in this installation. It was just a matter of "folding" the legs of the diode to get it on top of the motor, in the space between the weights. The LED fits nicely in the groove in the front weight.... You may want to carve out a little of the weight to let the LED sit lower and line up better with the headlight openings. And to make sure there's no interference when you lower the body on. /p>

Completed installation, ready for body shell to be snapped back on. The metal is very soft and carves easily with a utility knife. It actually takes longer for your soldering iron to heat up than it does to do this installation!

Completed model, being test run on our club layout.
The Titusville Area Model Railroad Club, Inc. is in Titusville, Florida, 45 minutes East of Orlando, and directly adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center. Contact Bill Gillespie, at (321) 269-0723. The Club meets on Monday evenings from 7-9p.m. Layouts in HO, N, and 3 rail O(Lionel). Any and all are welcome.

Picture shows the smokebox face and the buffer beam areas where the LEDs will be installed. There are small "tabs" molded onto them that indicate where the lamps would be on the "real thing". The loco was originally lighted by an incandescent bulb behind a hole in the top of the smokebox, one position only.

Photo showing all 3 SMD LEDs in place with wires run through tiny holes drilled on either side of the buffer beam mounts & through the original headlight hole on the smokebox. All the wires simply run back through the boiler casting to the cab where they join the two "original" wires for the headlamp. The resister and diode were put in the tender, where the wires originate. This locomotive model has a "tender drive", very common for European manufacturers, with "electrics" in the tender. The locomotive is merely a "dummy" pushed ahead of the tender!

A look at the installed LEDs after a bit of touch up with some black paint (to match the loco) that conceals the SMD units and their wiring, leaving only the face of the LED exposed. They look like little square lamp housings sitting on the brackets at the front of the engine.

Done at last and being "test lit" on our club's HO layout.
The camera flash kind of "washes out" the LED lighting in this picture, but the effect is just perfect! Now "Model Rails", start lighting up some of your own engines, TrainAidsA parts make it easy.